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FDA Moves Toward Approving
Over-the-Counter Plan B Sales

By

Anna Wilde Mathews

Updated Aug. 1, 2006 12:01 a.m. ET

WASHINGTON -- The Food and Drug Administration moved toward allowing adult women to buy the emergency contraceptive Plan B without a prescription, a step that would resolve a politically charged issue that sparked intense debate inside and outside the agency.

Yesterday's announcement, in a letter to Plan B manufacturer Barr Pharmaceuticals Inc., came just a day before the agency's acting commissioner, Andrew von Eschenbach, was set to appear at a Senate confirmation hearing on his nomination to become the FDA's formal...